Porsche claims to be the first automaker to bring braided carbon-fiber wheels to a production car by offering a quartet of ultra-strong, ultra-light, dark grey rims as an optional upgrade on the 2018 Porsche 911 Turbo S Exclusive Series.

You remember the one. It’s a regular ol’ 911, only turbocharged and upgraded to S trim and then further upgraded with 27 more horsepower for — make sure you’ve swallowed that last bite — $67,000. There will only be 500. The top speed is 205 miles per hour. The total cost is $257,500, or roughly the cost of a regular 911 Turbo S and a Macan GTS. There’s a lot of Golden Yellow Metallic.

And for the price of a 2017 Ford Fiesta, you could upgrade your 2018 Porsche 911 Turbo S Exclusive Series with $14,980 wheels.

Something tells me that if you’re about to purchase a $257,500 Porsche 911 Turbo S, the decision between a new Ford Fiesta and a set of carbon fiber wheels isn’t keeping you up at night.

Be an early adopter. Believe the hype. Get the wheels.Porsche says the hugely in-depth process involves nearly 10 square yards of carbon-fiber fabric, “cutting and assembling over 200 individual components,” and the largest carbon-fiber braiding machine… in the world. The result is a wheel that’s 20 percent stronger and 20 percent lighter, achieving the very best kind of heft reduction: an unsprung weight cutback. The total weight reduction, according to Car And Driver, is 75 pounds.

Through the first seven months of 2017, U.S. sales of the Porsche 911 are down 15 percent. Though it’s still Porsche USA’s best-selling non-SUV, the 911 is on track to suffer a six-year U.S. sales low in 2017.

On bumpy roads, I doubt you’d have to go too fast before you started noticing a 20% drop in unsprung weight. Especially with the big wheels and tires the Turbo comes with.

Of course, on bumpy roads, noone would drive this car, as they’d be too afraid of damaging the wheels. In fact, noone will even drive it to that favorite of all exotic car locations, the Starbucks located 3 miles from their home. In case going over the curb to the parking lot, damages their “inveestmeent.”

But for those who want to steal one of these, hence have no choice but to drive it in a proper getaway fashion; light wheels rule, trump and dominate all other performance upgrades, as far as actual performance on anything less than billiard table smooth road goes.

The Koenigsegg One:1 also has carbon fiber wheels, but it’s unclear to me what the distinction is between cut CF sheets and braided CF.

Actually, I did some more googling. It looks like the Porsche wheels are made from multiple parts that are then braided together, the baked and hardened into a single unit whereas the Koenigsegg wheels are created as a single piece (and are hollow, only weigh 13 lbs, and are capable of 280MPH).